Drinking a mug of tea in the CIC hut on Ben Nevis at the end
of the day was a pleasure. Normally
after a day on the Ben, Iain by habit needs to go in the hut, relax and enjoy a
pot of tea. Easy for him I think. Normally I am chomping to get back due to my
slight impatience. Mainly due to the
fact I’ll have some arrangement or work at the other side of the country the
next day. But this day was
different. I took time to enjoy the
company and reflect on our day….
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| Ben Nevis |
Over the years, I have managed to work my way through the
climbs in the guidebook for Carn Dearg Buttress on Ben Nevis. A bit annoying really as I love that badass
cliff. Iain of course has opened up a few
more but the details have only ever been discreetly published. A few years ago I repeated a route of his and
Tony Stones up the right wall of Sassenach.
A nice steady E6 wall climb.
Highly recommended for anyone operating at that grade. Recently we have had a great spell of
weather. For the first time ‘Life’ has
caught up with me and so I haven’t managed to capitalise on it. I had a day booked with Iain and so we opted
for Carn Dearg. He was happy to hold my
ropes. His suggestion was the left arête
of Banana Groove. It’s an E6 called ‘Calgucus’ he and Rick Campbell
established in 2009. I was easily sold.
Leaving the belay at the base of Banana Groove, I clipped
the top wire of the belay, placed a cam, unclipped the wire, placed another 2 wires
higher… then reversed, faffed. Then
clipped the belay wire. Thin moves left,
you gain the arête. It’s sharp but
satisfying. Airy moves up I gained more
wire placements. They seemed solid (Size
5 DMM offset and a big BD micro). More
tricky moves and the right wall overhangs.
I gained a strenuous undercut and manged to place 2 small C3’s and 1
micro.
The sequence above was unobvious. Strenuous and technical was my initial
thoughts. I probed up and down many
times trying to unlock something. Iain
had no knowledge so I was on my own. I
felt a bit of fear so placed another DMM small peanut. Now, I am a pretty
calculated climber I like to think… sometimes over cautious. No one wants to die or hurt themselves. So basing it on that, I committed to a
sequence. Yes, I was pumped and my
sequence was not working out so I went for the lob. The gear at my waist, nothing new I
thought. Fuck me, I went for the ride of
my life.
That cluster ripped clean out, spinning upside down, the
next cluster ripped, I’m still having flashing images of the ledges of
Sassenach off to my left. I braced my
body having time to think. The next
minutes I was on the biggest swing of my life under the big roofs of Sassenach
with a pile of gear upside down. ‘Oh
bugger I thought’. Correcting my
orientation my ribs ached along with 2 rope burns across the inside of my right
forearm. Keeping the swing, I got into
the wall and pulled my way onto the left rib.
Glancing up, Iain was pinned upside down glaring down with the rope
pinning him down. I thought I had had the rough ride. No!
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| On the Arete (Photo:Iain Small) |
Poor Iain was groaning in pain. He never said too much apart from telling me
he smacked his head (he was wearing a helmet), was feeling sick and sweating. He informed me he tied the rope off and to
just give him a minute. I was clamped to
the rib and placed 2 wires to secure myself to give myself a minute to just
take in what had happened. I had a
growing concern for Iain. How long do I wait
till I climb back up? He seemed adamant
to give him a moment… Eventually he partially recovered and I climbed back up
with him belaying me fine.
A nervous laughter was exchanged. It was agreed pretty quickly that a pot of
tea in the CIC hut was needed. I knew
something was wrong. It was 1.30pm, there
was still light and Iain wanted to go home!
By the time we had left the hut, Iain was fine, chatting
away and felt back to normal. It was
good to see the human side of him. He felt
content at the fact he has happy to leave, go home and enjoy the weather rather
than feel the need to be out. I felt
sick to be honest. I was the one who
took the 30 meter whipper, but I came away relatively un marked. Iain however took the impact. Hats off to him. He doesn’t remember much. Obviously he was checked out in A&E and
was deemed fine. A stitch was required
to his chin. His poor knuckles have no
skin left and he has a lump on his head.
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| Rope Burn |
Clearly a lot of analysis has been happening in my
head. Cubby has taken great interest and
has turned into Sherlock Holmes carrying out an enquiry. Jules
too has given it his interest. I do feel
a bit daft but it’s been reassuring speaking with those two as we all know from
the history books, they have taken their fair share of rides down the cliff. A few days have passed and I’m pretty keen to
get back out (its good to see I am frustrated about the humidity, thunderstorms
and midges rather than the fear of climbing).
I guess that’s the joy of harder climbing; I sign up for it . Having done lots of hard trad over the years,
it’s good to have a gentle reminder that things can be pretty dangerous. We walked away and I have my own thoughts on
how to deal with stressful trad in the future.
We all get lazy about placing that initial bomber runner. But from this experience, I’m sure you can
see its importance. Iain had actually
placed a wire at his waist which stopped the upward pull too much. Without, that would it have been much
worse? Do we all place wires at belays
to take upward pulls? Unusually we were
using a single rope that day. That was
out of the norm for me. Why do I have rope burn on the inside of my right arm? A lot of things
to think about. So take what you want
from that.
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